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14 CFR and Publications

You are not expected to know the regulations by heart. You are expected to know which document holds the answer — and to have looked before you fly.

Technical Subject Areas — FI.II.J

Why any of this is written down

Aviation writes almost everything down, and it writes it in layers: rules that bind you, guidance that tells you how the FAA would like those rules met, manufacturer books that bind you to one airplane, and reference handbooks that explain the rest. A safe, legal pilot knows which layer holds which kind of answer. Nobody carries Part 91 in their head, and nobody is asked to. What a pilot carries is a map — which document answers which kind of question — and the habit of looking it up on the ground.

All of it changes: regulations are amended, handbooks reissued, publications renamed. Treat this as the map and the Code of Federal Regulations itself as the authority. Where this lesson and the current CFR disagree, the CFR wins, and that applies to every section number below — read the section, not the summary.

What 14 CFR is

The Code of Federal Regulations is the codification of the general and permanent rules published in the Federal Register, sorted into titles by subject. Orders, adjudications, notices and other non-permanent material stay in the Federal Register and never reach the CFR. Title 14 is Aeronautics and Space, and within it the parts are numbered by topic. Those parts are what everyone calls the Federal Aviation Regulations.

Title 14 is revised annually, and the free electronic version at eCFR is updated as amendments take effect. Rules change through the Federal Register: a notice of proposed rulemaking, a comment period open to anyone including you, then a final rule. The printed FAR/AIM sold by FBOs and online is a yearly snapshot of the general aviation parts with the AIM bound in behind them — convenient, not authoritative.

Part 1 — definitions and abbreviations

Part 1 exists so the other parts mean something precise. When a regulation says aircraft or crewmember or night, Part 1 is where that word is pinned down. A rule that reads ambiguously is often resolved one part earlier.

Part 61 — certification of pilots and instructors

Part 61 is how you become and stay a certificated pilot: eligibility, required knowledge, required experience, and the privileges and limitations attached to each certificate. Its own definitions are in 61.1.

Three certificates are numbered on a repeating pattern — the 3-5-7-9 rule. Three is eligibility, five is aeronautical knowledge, seven is flight proficiency, nine is aeronautical experience. For the private pilot that is 61.103, 61.105, 61.107 and 61.109; for the commercial pilot, 61.123, 61.125, 61.127 and 61.129; for the airline transport pilot, 61.153, 61.155, 61.157 and 61.159. That is where the shortcut ends. Recreational pilot runs 61.96 through 61.99 and sport pilot 61.305 through 61.313, neither on the same spacing; the flight instructor sections are 61.183, 61.185 and 61.187, with no parallel aeronautical experience section; and a rating rather than a certificate sits wherever it sits — the instrument rating is 61.65, one section on its own. Use the pattern for the three certificates it fits and the table of contents for everything else.

Around those sit the sections you will be asked about constantly: 61.3 for the certificates and documents you must have with you, 61.23 for medical certificates, 61.56 for the flight review, 61.57 for recent flight experience — day and night passenger-carrying recency in 61.57(a) and (b), instrument recency and the instrument proficiency check in 61.57(c) and (d) — and 61.113 for what a private pilot may and may not be paid to do, with 61.133 the commercial equivalent. None of those requirements is settled by this page. Each is settled by the section as it reads on the day you need it.

Part 91 — general operating and flight rules

Part 91 governs how the flight is actually conducted: weather minimums, required equipment, right of way, altitudes, fuel, preventive maintenance, special flight rules. The ones to find without hunting are 91.3 on the authority and responsibility of the pilot in command, 91.9 on operating limitations, 91.13 on careless or reckless operation, 91.103 on preflight action, 91.105 on crewmember stations, 91.113 on right of way, 91.117 on speed limits, 91.119 on minimum safe altitudes, 91.121 on altimeter settings, 91.123 on compliance with ATC clearances and instructions, 91.151 on VFR fuel reserves, 91.205 on required instruments and equipment, and 91.211 on supplemental oxygen. Around it sit Parts 21, 39, 43 and 67 — certification procedures, airworthiness directives, maintenance, medical standards — and, once you fly for hire, Parts 119 and 135.

49 CFR Part 830 — accident or incident

Accident reporting is not in Title 14 at all. It belongs to the NTSB, in 49 CFR Part 830, and the definitions in 830.2 are worth reading in the original rather than in anyone's summary. An accident is "an occurrence associated with the operation of an aircraft" involving death, serious injury, or substantial damage to the aircraft, between the time anyone boards with the intention of flight and the time all such persons have disembarked. That opening clause carries weight: without the tie to operating the aircraft, the definition would sweep in a hangar mishap or a tow-bar accident with someone sitting in the cabin. An incident is "an occurrence other than an accident, associated with the operation of an aircraft, which affects or could affect the safety of operations."

830.2 defines both injury and damage precisely, and those definitions do real work — a dented skin, a bent fairing or cowling, and damage to landing gear, wheels, tires, flaps and brakes are all excluded from substantial damage. Engine damage is excluded too, but only on the terms the section states, which reach engine failure or damage limited to an engine "if only one engine fails or is damaged" — a qualifier that matters in a twin. Read 830.2 itself before deciding what you have; the exclusions are exactly where the argument happens.

830.5 says what requires you to notify the nearest NTSB office immediately. Alongside any accident, that includes:

830.6 lists what to say on that call, and 830.10 requires you to preserve the wreckage and records until the NTSB takes over. The written report follows under 830.15: within ten days for an accident, and for a reportable incident, only if the Board asks.

Advisory circulars, InFO and SAFO

An advisory circular is how the FAA tells you how it would like something done. ACs are guidance, not regulation — generally not binding unless a rule incorporates one — but an AC describes a method the FAA has already accepted, which makes it the shortest path to good operating practice. They are numbered to match the regulation subject they address and are free on faa.gov. Alongside them sit InFO, Information for Operators, for lower-urgency material, and SAFO, Safety Alert for Operators, for pushing safety information out quickly.

The ACS, and what is left of the PTS

The Practical Test Standards gave the tasks and tolerances for a checkride. They are being replaced by the Airman Certification Standards, which keep both and organize what the PTS carried loosely. Knowledge requirements lived inside PTS task objectives, and risk management and aeronautical decision-making appeared as special emphasis areas covering the test as a whole; the ACS codifies knowledge and risk management as listed elements under each individual task and ties them to the skill elements there. The ACS says what you must know, what you must manage, and what you must fly, and the examiner tests all three. A few certificates remain on a PTS, so check which document and edition applies to your test.

The books that are not regulations

The POH and AFM come from the manufacturer. The Airplane Flight Manual is FAA-approved and tied to a specific airplane by serial number; the Pilot's Operating Handbook is the manufacturer's book, laid out since the mid-1970s in a standardized format so you can find the emergency procedures in an unfamiliar type without reading the whole thing. Often they are the same document — a POH carrying the approved material and that serial number serves as the AFM. It lives with the airplane, it is where the numbers for the airplane you are flying come from, and 91.9 binds you to its limitations.

The Aeronautical Information Manual is the FAA's official guide to basic flight information and ATC procedures. Not regulatory, but it is where the procedures you are expected to follow are explained: navigation, airport lighting, airspace, air traffic control, emergencies, medical facts, charts, and the pilot/controller glossary. Learn its table of contents rather than its contents — knowing that airspace is Chapter 3 beats half-remembering the answer.

The Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge is the ground-knowledge reference, from systems to aeromedical factors; the Airplane Flying Handbook covers maneuvers and safe practices. Both are free from faa.gov. Airport information — runway lengths, frequencies, navigation aids, services, and the remarks that mention the noise-sensitive neighborhood or the deer — is in what used to be the Airport/Facility Directory and is now the Chart Supplement. The name changed; the answers did not. That rename is fair warning about the rest of this lesson.

Carrying something current

The cycle-dated products tell you themselves: the AIM, the Chart Supplement and the charts carry the date of their next scheduled edition, and the FAA publishes a list of latest editions. Check it. The handbooks and the advisory circulars are on no fixed cycle and print no next-edition date, so for those the FAA's latest-editions list, or its website, is the only way to know you are holding the current one. No Part 91 rule says your AIM must be this year's, and the FAA does not go hunting for expired handbooks — but 91.103 requires you to become familiar with all available information concerning that flight, and stale information is hard to defend after something has gone wrong. Same for charts, NOTAMs and charting notices. The question is not whether an old chart is illegal, but whether you would want to explain it.

Where you meet it next

On the checkride this is a knowledge task, and the examiner is not testing recall. You will be asked where a private pilot's limitations are written, whether a given event has to be reported, or how to find the pattern altitude at an unfamiliar field. The answer that passes is the one where you open the right document and find it — on the shelf or on the tablet you fly with. Practice that until it is fast.

Every regulatory subject after this returns here. Currency, endorsements, airspace, required equipment, oxygen, fuel reserves — each is a section number in Part 61 or Part 91, and each is a case of finding the rule rather than remembering it. The habit generalizes past the CFR: a raw observation is its own small publication with its own grammar, which is what reading a METAR teaches, and the numbers you will be asked for have their own tools, from density altitude to crosswind components. The rest of the ground school lessons assume you can open the book.

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